The danger of big government

My Word: Dean Cannon

Like many Americans, you may have watched the president address Congress -- and the American people -- on his sweeping health-care-reform ideas.

After watching it, I sensed that the president's speech did not change the minds of many Americans. But that's not really what the speech was about. While it was peppered with references to bipartisanship, it was a highly partisan speech directed to members of his party. It was less a speech by a president to a nation, and more a speech by a standard-bearer to the party he leads.

As such, it reminded me of the importance of the core values that I and other Republicans hold dear.

We believe that "the government which governs best, governs least." We can all agree those with pre-existing medical conditions should not be denied the ability to insure themselves and their families. And it is clear something must be done to reduce the cost of health care. We should act on these legitimate concerns with precise, thoughtful policies.

President Obama ramrodded a stimulus bill for the stated purpose of "jump-starting the economy." The bill was originally sold as infrastructure-related spending to create jobs -- particularly for those hardest hit in construction-related fields. But the so-called stimulus bill degenerated into a Washington pork-spending orgy to implement an agenda that Americans -- led by a Democrat president and a Republican Congress -- abandoned more than a decade ago.

While watching my TV, I realized Obama was outlining his unprecedented expansion of government at the same podium at which another Democrat, President Bill Clinton, declared in 1996, "The era of big government is over." In leading up to this declaration, Clinton said, "We know big government does not have all the answers. We know there's not a program for every problem. We have worked to give the American people a smaller, less bureaucratic government in Washington. And we have to give the American people one that lives within its means."

Congressional Democrats aren't the only deficit spenders. Some Republicans have strayed from our core values of fiscal restraint. When times were good, and government had more money, some were too willing to spend, rather than save. But the magnitude of deficit spending and increases in the size and scope of government under Obama and congressional Democrats is unprecedented and dangerous.

We need our leaders at all levels of government to address real problems with precise solutions. We don't need cynical ideologues who would use the very real pain and anxiety Americans feel as an opportunity to grow the role, scope and cost of government in a way that is reckless, irresponsible and unsustainable.